How to Make Spaghetti Sauce

There is no "right" method for how to make spaghetti sauce -- everyone has his own favorite recipe. Maybe your grandmother adds in fennel seeds or your mother grates a carrot into the pot or your sister-in-law throws in a pinch of sugar at the end. There are so many variations it's can be hard to choose a recipe to start with.
Although many people use jarred sauce for convenience, homemade is so much better and you can adjust the seasonings to your liking, whether you want less salt or more garlic.
This version of spaghetti sauce is authentic, easy to make, and delicious. Canned tomatoes work just as well when fresh tomatoes aren't in season, so this can be your go-to recipe year round.

Hi, I'm Miranda with recipe.com, and today I'm gonna show
you how to make fresh tomato sauce. Now, a good
tomato sauce is at the heart of so many great
meals; pizza, pasta, saute, vegetables, or soups. So, you can
take advantage of the summer harvest freezing a nice batch
of the sauce and you will be one step closer
to a garden fresh meal. So, I have our ingredients
all laid out here. Let's get started. We have 4-1/2
cups of plum tomatoes; a quarter cup of extra virgin
olive oil; 3/4 cup of chopped garlic, it's about 2
heads. Then, we have 4 cups of diced onions, 1-1/2
teaspoons of salt, 1/4 cup of tomato paste, 1 teaspoon
of dried oregano, 1/2 cup of red wine, 2 tablespoons
of red wine vinegar, 1/2 cup of wonderfully fresh chopped
basil, and then freshly ground pepper to taste. Now, we
have this large pot of water over here that's been
brought to a boil. So, what I'm going to do
is with this paring knife I'm going to start by
coring the tomatoes. So, just making a little incision at
the top, I'm just going kind of pop out literally
the little core, this little steamy part just like that.
So, see perfect, so get that out of the way.
So, as what I did to the top, now I'm
gonna score the bottom. So, we're just gonna make like
a little x, and we've scored the bottom. Now, in
batches, I'm going to transfer my tomatoes to the boiling
water and I'm going to let them boil for 30
seconds to 2 minutes or until the skins have loosened.
Okay, so my skins have loosened. I can start taking
them out. I'm gonna use a slot spoon, so you
can see how the skin has split. This is going
to make peeling this abreast. So, I'm just going to
give this a little ice bath. We're [unk] this. I
have a large bowl here with ice water and I'm
gonna let them sit in here for 1 minute until
they're cold a little bit, and I'm ready to handle
them. Okay, so, the next step, these have cold, we're
are going to peel these. I have this nice bib
bowl here and I have a sieve fashioned on top
and using a paring knife, but honestly, I may not
even really needing for this for coming off so well.
We're just going to peel these and just let the
peels fall in to the sieve, so perfect. Now, with
the paring knife, we're just gonna cut this in half
lengthwise and just with my hand like with a little
cute little finger, I'm just gonna scoop out the seeds,
perfect, and then scoop again, just kind of scoop this
out until all the seeds out and then through the
sieve, you can put your tomatoes to the side. You're
just going to squeeze of all kind of any juice
that you can of the seeds and out of the
skins and just kind of push those to the bowl
below, and then I'm gonna continue with the rest of
your tomatoes. Okay, so look how much great juice I
extracted from the seeds and the skins and then I
just coarsely chop these tomatoes and we're ready to set
this aside because we are now going to heat our
oil. So I've got this large [unk] or you could
use a Dutch oven, whichever. So, we're gonna heat this,
pop our garlic in and stirring constantly, we're to cook
the garlic for about 2 to 3 minutes or until
it starts to color and get really fragrant. Already, it
smells incredible. Alright, now check out my garlic, starting to
get some color here, looks beautiful. Now, we're going to
add in the onions and the salt, and I'm gonna
pop a cover on this, stirring occasionally and I'm gonna
let this cook until the onions are nice and tender
about 10 to 15 minutes. Alright, check out our onions
and garlic. They are wonderfully tender. The smell is just
incredible in here. So, I know that it is time
to add in my tomato paste and the oregano, and
I'm gonna cook this in here also stirring occasionally for
about 2 to 4 minutes or until the tomato paste
begins to brown a little bit on the bottom. Alright,
look how nice and kind of coating the bottom is
getting a little bit, perfect. It's now time to add
in the red wine and then the red wine vinegar,
and we're gonna let this come to a simmer, which
is doing nicely already until it reduced slightly about 2
minutes. So, that's reduced. It looks great. It is time
to add in the tomatoes and that juice that we
squeezed out. So, we're still leaving the basil and the
pepper for later. We've not forgotten about them. Look at
that and over there. Let's give this a nice stir
to incorporate everything. I'm gonna cover this, reduce the heat,
and let it just gently simmer for about 25 minutes
or until the tomatoes have mostly broken down. Alright, so
check out our tomato sauce. The tomatoes have broken down
beautifully. This looks fantastic, smell even better. Do not forget
about our basil. We're just gonna sprinkle that right in.
Give it a nice toss. Make sure our heat is
off, fantastic. I cannot express how good this smells, but
I will stop trying because our very last step is
to puree this. So depending upon the consistency that you
like, you are going to either puree all of this
in a food processor or blender. I'm gonna use a
food processor here of if you like your sauce to
be a little bit kind of chunky like I do,
you'll just puree half like I about to do, and
then just mix the pureed part back in. Oh my
gosh, so good, so exciting, and then you'll be good
to go. So, I'm just gonna give this a few
pushes, and if you're working with a food processor, always
make sure that you pay attention line where it says
max liquid line. That is an important thing to know.
And so you'll just do this in batches, but for
me because I want it to stay kind of chunky,
I'm just gonna puree this a little bit. Lift this
up and I'm just going to add it right back
in, remove the blade, look at that. Look how gorgeous.
Now, I could have mixed even longer, but that will
give it a really nice texture. Its consistency is amazing.
It smells fantastic. I'm so excited. So, I'm going to
enjoy some of these tonight maybe over some pasta and
freeze the rest. So, I can enjoy fresh tomato sauce
all year long.

Learning how to make spaghetti sauce is one of those skills that every home cook should master, because you'll use it over and over again. After all, who would pass up a bowl of pasta topped with a rich, old-world spaghetti sauce?